A/N: Welcome to the past. The Wolf's past, specifically. This will will tie up a few loose ends in preparation of the grand finale. And for all intents and purposes, ignore any canon having to do with the Time War and the 50th anniversary unless explicitly mentioned in this chapter, as this is an alternate universe to the Doctor's and things happened very differently in the Wolf's universe. However, the Doctor's universe does exist in my storyline, so all the canon stuff belongs in that universe. Enjoy the ride.

Interlude: Kuryak

The Wolf selected her name when she first left Gallifrey with her granddaughter, Arkytior. She chose 'the Wolf' to always remind her of her duty to protect her pack. If that pack was the rest of the universe instead of her own people, then so be it. The Wolf was also a tie to her true identity: an identity she didn't want to forget, but nor did she necessarily want to remember, either.

She had been eight years old when she had first learned of her destiny, and that day was the first time she had run from it as well. The High Council had taken her and her friends, Theta and Koschei, to stand before the Untempered Schism for initiation into the Academy. Koschei had been the oldest; he went first. When he screamed at what he saw, they ushered him away quickly. Koschei had never been the same after that.

Theta had run after looking. The Council had shaken their heads in disappointment. They had considered Theta to have the most potential of all of them. Eventually, after an arranged marriage into a prominent house, Theta had settled down, choosing to name himself the Doctor. He wanted to make people better than they were. Theta had once confided to the Wolf that he was never truly content teaching young students at the Academy, longing for the stars. However, he stayed out of a sense of duty.

When the Wolf, then known as Kuryak, had looked into the Untempered Schism, it had looked back into her. At first, all she could see was gold. It swirled in empty space, directionless. Then Kuryak thought she could hear music – the most beautiful music she had ever heard. She had been entranced. But then, the gold had coalesced, forming tendrils that extended from the Schism to reach out for her. Kuryak, still under the spell of the music, had not noticed the golden tendrils until they came into contact with her skin – one going to her singular heart and another going to where her second heart would eventually be once she regenerated. One more split to reach into her eyes.

Kuryak panicked when she felt the unknown power enter her. She had tried to pull away only to be held in place. It had felt as though the golden light had seeped into her mind, throwing open any door it found and filling her with a power that burned. Eight year old Kuryak had screamed in fear and pain as fire poured into her mind and threatened to overwhelm her, but she forced herself to let it go, shoving it back into the Schism, and suddenly, the pain was gone. When Kuryak had come back to herself, she was lying on the floor, hands pressed to her temples. All around her, cracks ran through the tiled floor. The members of the High Council were staring at her and whispering. When she caught the murmured "Bad Wolf", Kuryak picked herself up and ran for it, just as Theta had.

Only, unlike Theta, Kuryak never stopped running. She knew the legends and prophecies associated with the Bad Wolf. If the Time Lords had had any kind of religion or higher power, it was the gold shrouded woman. She was said to have powers and knowledge beyond imagination – able to shape the universe to her liking. Kuryak had no interest, was terrified, even, of having such power.

The Council had tried to isolate her. They took her for "special instruction", kept her separated from her friends and family for years. This special instruction had mainly involved the Cardinals of the Council attempting to unlock her supposed powers. However, Kuryak failed all of her lessons on purpose, playing dumb or just plain refusing to cooperate. Eventually, after a few years, the High Council had given up on her, released her to return to the Academy, and had assumed that the events at the Untempered Schism had been an accident, nothing more.

Kuryak kept her head down all those torturous years at the Academy. She had stayed in the background, watching Theta and Koschei cause all sorts of trouble: Theta out of curiosity, Koschei for reasons more sinister. The Cardinals seemed to lose interest in her, but she endeavored to blend in, to avoid their notice.

Because she could feel the foreign power coursing through her mind. She saw things, impossible things. Sometimes she lost control. She would run when that happened – to the Silver Forest. Kuryak would black out, and wake to contained destruction all around her. Trees split, grass was pulverized, rocks cracked. She kept these occurrences secret from everyone, even Theta, her best friend.

Kuryak managed to graduate without drawing too much attention to herself. After that, she had found herself in an arranged marriage, and, a few decades later, with children, courtesy of the Looms. She knew that she was supposed to remain aloof, detached, to control her emotions, but Kuryak loved her children fiercely. She longed for the stars, for adventure, for escape from the ever watchful eye of the High Council, who never truly believed in her powerlessness, but her children kept her grounded.

It wasn't until her son approached her with Arkytior, begging her to take his daughter away, that Kuryak had finally been able to escape Gallifrey. Arkytior, eventually calling herself Susan, would have never been a full Time Lady. However, Kuryak borrowed an out-of-use TARDIS, and together, they adventured. Kuryak renamed herself the Wolf – a vow to protect her family in Susan and anyone else in need of assistance. She respected that wolves looked after their own so viciously.

In time, the High Council caught up and exiled them. They obtained companions – wanted or not – who came and went, Susan included. The Wolf found herself exiled again, banished to Earth for interfering one too many times. Koschei reappeared in her life as a threatening force, calling himself the Master. She saved people and lost them, strangers and loved ones alike, and it never got any easier.

While exploring, the Wolf didn't have as many "episodes". Eventually, they stopped altogether with her beloved TARDIS helping to siphon off the extra energy from the Bad Wolf. The Wolf ran for centuries this way until, finally, her past caught up with her. She was ordered home to Gallifrey – a call she could not ignore forever. But she resisted heeding the command for years, refusing to partake in a massacre partially caused by the Time Lords' arrogance. It was not her war.

A personal plea from her friend Romana convinced the Wolf to return to her home planet. But before she could rendezvous with Romana, the Wolf was taken by the High Council, led by a newly resurrected Rassilon. Romana had been deposed as High President. The Cardinals had overpowered the Wolf, dragging her before the Untempered Schism. They attempted to force her to gaze into it again, something no Time Lord was ever supposed to do twice. They wished to release the Bad Wolf and order it to destroy the Dalek fleet that was approaching the planet.

"I cannot do it," she had begged as her mind struggled against their will. "It cannot be controlled, do you not understand? The universe will be wiped away same as the Daleks if you force me to do this!"

"The lesser species are of no matter," Rassilon had intoned. "With the destruction of this universe, we will ascend as higher beings into another realm of consciousness."

The Wolf had stared, nearly uncomprehending. They wanted her to destroy the universe. Every fiber of her being, including all seven of her previous selves, screamed. "Well, that makes things simple – very very simple," she had said quietly, stilling her struggles. The Cardinals had nodded, seemingly satisfied that she had accepted her destiny to end all life, and the Council Guards relaxed around her. "I have just one thing left to say to you," she had continued. The Council had waited. She grinned manically. "BYE!" She had run before any of them had been able to react, evading the Council Guards and quickly making her way to Romana's office.

Romana had then given her the most dangerous weapon in the universe. The Wolf had stared at it in horror. "You cannot ask this of me, Romana!" she had protested. "Using the Moment is almost as horrendous as what the High Council wanted to use the Bad Wolf for!"

"The Daleks are going to decimate us, Wolf," Romana had told her. "Arcadia has fallen, the Sphere will be next, and with it, the last defense this universe has against those creatures. For their sake, you must do this!" she pleaded. Giving in, the Wolf fled back to her TARDIS with the Cardinals and their guards in pursuit, taking the Moment with her.

Without the intended power source that the Wolf had been forced to leave behind, the Moment had required an external energy source. The Wolf gave the sentient weapon energy by calling on the Bad Wolf willingly for the first time in her life. With that power, the Moment sealed the Daleks and Gallifrey into a Time Lock – able to destroy each other but leaving the rest of the universe safe from their battles.

The Wolf was overcome as the screams of her people filled her mind. Her TARDIS fired up, determined to get her Thief out of the Time Lock before it sealed forever. The ship threw everything she had into getting away, nearly destroying herself in the process. Just before losing consciousness from the energy drain and cries of her people, the Wolf swore that she heard Romana's whispered "Thank you", before all the voices in her mind ceased forever. The Wolf's world faded, and she regenerated to repair her mangled mind and body.

The Wolf had woken to an extremely damaged ship, a new body, and an empty mind. The TARDIS had floated aimlessly through the Time Vortex for weeks as the Wolf slowly recovered from her traumatic regeneration and adjusted to the silence in her mind. The loss of her people was devastating, as pompous as they were, but being responsible for the erasure of two species had very nearly destroyed the Wolf.

However, the TARDIS eventually pulled the Wolf back to herself and forced her to get up and begin making the necessary repairs to get the ship operational again. That had taken a few more weeks. When the Wolf fell into an exhausted sleep plagued by nightmares after finishing, the TARDIS materialized them on Earth at the time of a Nestene invasion. And when the Wolf woke up, her ship tossed her out, forcing her to go and investigate.

There, in a horrid looking changing room at some non-descript department store in London, the Wolf met a man who would turn her world on its head. Together, they saved the world.

But he refused to come with her, even though she could see that he desperately wished to. The Wolf left and wallowed. She flirted around the edges of fixed points in time, never quite stepping over the line. Krakatoa, Dallas, the Titanic. For months, the Wolf was too close. So the TARDIS took her back to a dirty alleyway, reminding her Thief of what she had forgotten to say.

And with that, Doctor John Smythe entered the Wolf's life. And today, nearly a year later, might be the day he left it.

A/N 2: 'Kuryak' is a bastardized version of the Bosnian term for 'wolf'.

Feel free to review or PM me if you have any questions! I know there was absolutely no set up for this.